


Reappear

by Elleth



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Character Study, Dark, Experimental Style, F/F, Original Character Death(s), Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9885170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: Sleipnope remembers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not 100% convinced that this makes sense, both in how it might integrate into canon and in how clear the idea is, but this was something that needed exorcizing from my mind, so to speak. 
> 
> For the SSSS Femslash February Challenge: [First Aid Kit - I Found A Way](http://womenofssss.tumblr.com/post/157436534137/reawakening-remembrance-of-ones-self).

_As I was looking for_  
_A way to disappear_  
_Amongst the quiet things_  
_And all these empty streets_  
_I found a way, I found a way_  
_To reappear_

First Aid Kit - I Found A Way

* * * 

The ghost rushes in. The ghost rushes in and takes the two - a woman and a man - that stand in its way. They fall down easily. They are weak. Their minds and hearts and life lie open for the feast. 

The ghost feasts. Slowly first, then quicker, greedier. 

It feasts on cunning. It feasts on secrets. It feasts on pain, on shame, relief, memories, boredom, care, toil, strategy, fear, grief, resignation, joy, companionship, daring, bravery, exhaustion, frustration, anger,

Love. 

It recoils from love, but too late. 

It fills it up and traps it. 

* * * 

Pia shoves the door shut behind her with a foot, quickly. The guy who's been following her can stay out. He's probably infected and acting weird because of it anyway, or he wanted her groceries, or both. These days it's at least one of those things. Well, he can head to a hospital then, or to one of the Army's distribution centers that have been established since the borders closed and the supermarkets ran out of stock. She's not sharing. Kastellet is both, and it isn't that far away. In fact, he started following her on the way back from it. 

She drops the keys on the sideboard in the hall, wanders into the kitchen and backs straight out again when smoke hits her in the face and drives water into her eyes. 

Now she can smell it even through her breath-mask. 

She drops the basket, dimly thinks the eggs probably didn't survive that, and lunges for the stove, yanking the burning pot off the fire and dropping it into the sink, where it extinguishes with a hiss just before the water gutters out. Then she throws the window open and nearly knocks one of the potted roses off the sill. 

So much gas and food - whatever was in that pot - all wasted. It's not the first time this happened, but it's easier to laugh about pizzas that turn into charcoal in your oven because you're too busy making out on the sofa when you can just skip around the corner to Netto on Østerbrogade and pick up new ones. 

Pia wants to cry.

"Christina?" she calls instead. The mask muffles the sound, and the tears that she blinks away soak into the fabric. "Did you fall asleep again?" 

No answer. The lights aren't on even though it's a dim, cloudy day that's been spattering rain on and off, but when she tries the switch the lights only flicker tiredly and then go out. 

She sure as hell hopes the water and electricity come back soon. 

"Christina?" As Pia pokes her head into the living room, bathroom and the fitness room-slash-greenhouse-slash-art-studio and there still hasn't been an answer, her stomach has started clenching with worry. 

She finds Christina passed out on the bedroom floor, and there's a rash - _a Rash_ \- crawling up into her fuzzy not-quite-buzzcut from behind her left ear. Christina had said she'd nicked herself shaving, it was all perfectly innocuous. And she was so clingy lately because the news scared her so much, when there still were news; the lack of them is just as bad. And she had a cold - just a cold, she'd promised; she'd worn her mask all the time. 

Pia thinks of the last time they kissed - before she left, just a few hours ago, pecking her girlfriend's nose and telling her to warm up a can of chicken soup - of course, that was the burned pot - because she looked so pale and hungry. 

She yanks off her own mask.

It's amazing where denial got them. It's all so clear in retrospect. 

Pia is probably already infected, but just for good measure - and now her head is clear and she doesn't even want to cry any longer - she presses her lips against the ugly red scabs and getting up licks her lips for good measure. If Christina dies… she'll make damn sure she follows. 

It's a good thing Christina is short and slight. Pia wraps her in two winter coats and carries her down the stairs. It's dark and cold outside by now, and the street lamps are off. She's never seen Copenhagen this dark. 

If they can make it to Kastellet, everything's gonna be okay. 

* * *

The ghost howls. 

That's what it remembers. 

That's what saves the man and woman. 

It slams itself at the mage instead of the two non-mages, into his shields, into the pattern on the snowy ground, still howling, at the memory and the searing pain in it. 

It doesn't _want_ to remember. 

It gives itself over to fury instead, swelling bloated and grotesque with the life force it's absorbed. 

Not the memories. It forces them down far, far down where they sting and hurt like the living souls that did this to _HhEer_ it, but they can't harm _heRrrRRr_ it any longer. 

It has to get past the shields. Snuff out the mage, get at the 

_fFfUzzZYy-hHeeeaAdddD_

that's driving. That's the source and reason behind it in the woman's heart and head. And it's not immune.

It tears at the mage's shield, desperate to get past, whipping itself into a frenzy. 

But the mage resists long enough for help to reach him. Light drives the ghost out, leaving it to scream after its victim as their vehicle rumbles away into the sunset. But the ghost is nothing if not persistent. It has all the time in the world. An army at its back. A plan. 

A goal. A track to follow. 

It _sHHee_ cannot remember its _hErR_ name. It is dark and cold now, always. 

They leave Copenhagen far behind. They find other sources of strength. 

A troll, immense and bloated and furious that the woman escaped it. Down the road, a mare stabled with her dead foal. It relishes all that, forcing down the pain, assumes a merged shape and runs on eight legs. It drives the mutated and sick before them, and it plants thoughts and targets in their minds to destroy. 

The love, foremost, that is keeping it trapped. 

* * * 

The doctors at Kastellet fail to save Christina. They talk of complications and underlying issues, and she passes away in her sleep only three days later, succumbing, they promise, easily and with barely any pain. 

Pia still hasn't developed the Rash. Her head feels stuffy and she refuses the bare rations and watery soup, but that might be the grief and the tears, not the first symptoms of the Rash. She hopes for it, even sends up a prayer, though she's left that part of her life far behind her. 

After a week and a half, the back of her neck itches. She's angry now - angry at the doctors and the world, and she can't wait to follow Christina. She's hoarded some of the sleeping pills they've doled out for her, but she doesn't take them for fear that wherever that'd take her, it wouldn't be where Christina is. Better to let it run its course and go where Christina went. 

Home. Wherever that is. 

Then the doctors come to her with a fluid bag and an infusion needle, saying she's malnourished, that they've decided to put her on a drip to make sure she doesn't starve. 

It's not that, she realizes too late, when she grows sleepy, her eyes shut against her will, and then -

\- nothing -

\- until she looks down at the husk that was her body, ignored and abandoned in her bed among many just like it. 

Christina is nowhere near.

She rises against the doctors until others like her join her, and the doctors flee. 

It grows quiet in Kastellet. 

She _iiiiTTtt_ starts forgetting. 

* * *

It doesn't forget what needs eradicating. 

It doesn't forget what inspired such pain, rising from the woman's mind and trapping her. 

When they have cornered their targets, it gives the infected directions, plants the target into their minds, steers them. 

_TtThe fuUZzy-head._

The assault begins. 

* * *

The defense is stronger than expected. 

It flees, its objective unfulfilled, but even as it retreats, it knows there is a diseased creature in hiding under the vehicle, sure on its target, intent on the fatal bite. 

It has won. 

Not long now, and the team will be one member short. They will know how it hurts to lose one they love. 

The woman who hurt it with her love, especially. 

They will know its hurt, be trapped in its stead. 

It can go home.

* * * 

Its howling echoes far into the empty morning. 

It will never stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Cookies to readers who can spot the references to page 675/676, and many thanks to Kiraly for her help!


End file.
